Review of Gifted by Annalise Hulse

What really happens when we die?

It wasn't a question that seventeen year old Evangeline Devine - Evie to her friends - had ever thought about much. There was no reason why she should - her life on the small island of Jersey with her family and best friend Seth was untouched by tragedy, idyllic even.
Until the day that Evie nearly dies herself. When Seth pulls her from the watery depths that nearly claim her life, Evie is no longer the carefree girl she was. For now she is the recipient of an unwelcome supernatural gift. Now the dead are all around and impossible to ignore.
But when someone close to her dies mysteriously, Evie is forced to embrace her new power, for she may be the only one that can prove that it was no accident. Someone is getting away with murder.
  
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Oh wow, this book! I devoured it, reading wherever I could - in the car, in pizza hut! I loved every page of it and it's wonderfully well written. It's like The O.C. meets Buffy, only on a small island called Jersey (it's a real place) which is situated between France and England. All of the residents speak English as, well, England owns them. I think. Yes? I'm sure the Author will weigh in on this as she lives there!

There's a lot of elements in this that make up the perfect paranormal romance story in my opinion. Ghosts (I love me some ghosties), family secrets, a heroine that I love, a ghost friend that had me crying, bad guys, good guys, death, betrayal and Seth, the romantic interest! I'm so surprised it hasn't received any reviews yet as it's just... awesome.

Evie is a character I really admired. She just gets on with things, instead of wandering around moping about her head. She's far too busy trying to find out why she keeps seeing these ghosts! Her Grandmother helps out with that, of course! Always great to have a wise woman as a Grandmother. We meet Seth properly later on in the book, as in he gets his own chapter and we see Evie in his eyes and it was a great insight. I was originally going to stop reading and continue later but when I saw Seth had his own chapter I was like, Okay then!

Piers Du Pont turns up about a quarter of the way through the book and he adds a ton of questions that really moved the story along. As he used to bully Pete in the past, Evie cannot decide if he's still the same but pretending otherwise - or if he really has changed and is as nice as he pretends to be. He was a great character throughout!

The ending left me with a lot of anticipation for the future - there's going to be three or four books in this series and I for once can't wait to get my hands on them! The main story is wrapped up nicely, only leaving us with questions about a prophecy of sorts surrounding Evie, which I prefer in a cliff hanger! I'm definitely going to be shoving this book at everyone I know, I've already sent my first ever Goodreads recommendation!

5/5

 Received free form the Author in exchange for an honest review